Hundreds of defendants may go free in lab scandal, DA warns

BOSTON -- A prosecutor says 300 to 500 defendants may be released into Boston streets because of the alleged mishandling of evidence at a Massachusetts drug lab.

Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley says those numbers include some "pretty dangerous people."

Chemist Annie Dookhan is charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly skirting protocols and faking test results at the now-closed state drug lab. At least two dozen defendants whose cases Dookhan handled have been released.

And while the drug sentences grabbing headlines lately in Massachusetts are the ones that have recently ended because of questions over evidence tested by Dookhan, the slowly unfolding drama could soon brush up against sentencing reform efforts on tap for the next legislative session.

It's unclear how the drug-lab drama will figure into sentencing reform talks, but one top Patrick administration official attempted this week to draw a bright line between the two topics.

"They're totally separate situations, and I look forward to continuing the good work that we did on sentencing reform, and I know the Legislature's committed to that as well," Secretary of Public Safety and Security Mary Beth Heffernan said Tuesday when asked whether questions over drug evidence would enter into the conversation about sentencing reform.

As lawmakers were hammering out an agreement on a sentencing reform bill in July -- which included lower mandatory minimums for drug offenses and stricter sentencing for habitual violent offenders -- state police were getting ready to take over the Hinton Lab in Jamaica Plain as part of streamlining included in the budget signed July 8.

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After the Legislature rejected an amendment by Gov. Deval Patrick that would have granted judicial discretion in sentencing habitual offenders, Patrick signed the bill with a vow to return in 2013 for more reforms.

"We must also get serious about reforming mandatory minimum sentences," the governor said a few days before signing the bill. "The warehousing of nonviolent drug offenders has proven to be a costly failure. It does nothing to improve public safety and it doesn't deal with the substance abuse that is the source of the problem. States across the country are moving away from it and we must, too."

An aide for Sen. Cynthia Stone Creem, D-Newton, the Senate's lead negotiator on the sentencing bill, said Creem is "philosophically opposed" to mandatory minimum sentences and believes there is support to reduce mandatory minimums for other offenses besides drug offenses.

Patrick signed the sentencing reform bill into law on Aug. 2, and five days later a state police lieutenant interviewed a longtime employee at the Hinton Lab about her concern that she "felt there was something wrong" that had occurred in June 2011, when Dookhan removed samples from an evidence room without signing them out.

The new sentencing reform went into effect immediately, and Patrick has said it would make 600 nonviolent drug offenders eligible for parole. The law also reduces the reach of drug-sentence enhancing school zones.

However since information about Dookhan violating testing protocols began seeping out starting in late August, the get-out-of jail ticket for drug offenders has been tying their cases to the "rogue chemist."

The Boston Globe reported more than 20 people have been freed in the wake of allegations about Dookhan's improprieties at the drug lab.

Asked whether she was keeping track of the number of inmates freed over now-questionable evidence, Heffernan said, "We have a lot of different things we're keeping track of. I don't want to go on the record about what we're doing or not doing. But we're working carefully with the DAs, with the defense bar, and with the jail, sheriffs, the DOC obviously, and the courts, who are very important."

Dookhan was arrested one week ago on two counts of obstruction of justice -- for allegedly listing fake cocaine as testing positive as real cocaine -- and another misdemeanor charge for allegedly lying about a master's degree.

The justice system has taken a new attitude toward defendants who were convicted based on evidence analyzed by Dookhan. Judge Carol Ball reduced the bail of Marcus Pixley from $5,000 to $1,000 because evidence in his case was handled by Dookhan. Conley, the Suffolk district attorney, objected to the bail reduction because Pixley had previously been convicted of rape and other crimes.

The defendant failed to appear for a status hearing on Wednesday but was recaptured and arraigned on Friday. A judge doubled his bail to $2,000 and set his next court date for Oct. 15.

"A one-size-fits-all approach just doesn't work when every case and every defendant is different," said Conley in a statement Thursday. "We have to look at the non-drug offenses on the docket, we have to look at the defendant's record and whether he has prior defaults, and we have to look at the likelihood he'll be convicted and serve time.

"We've assented to more than a dozen bail reductions and stays of sentences in the past month, including two when the defendants were present to plead guilty," Conley added. "We're judicious in our recommendations to the court. ... One thing has become very clear: The defendants who stand to benefit most from the lab disaster aren't low-level, nonviolent drug users. They're moving large quantities of drugs, they've got long records, or they're violent offenders."

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